They have a right to feel nervous. They’ve sweated through college and through rigorous standardized exams, which they hope will open the door to their chosen professions. But the prestigious postgrad programs are ruthless about selecting the best candidates (at least if they are white or Asian). So, applicants obsess over whether their 165 LSATK-12 education or 680 GMAT is good enough to get in.

There is much that can be learned from the study of average test scores from the major postgrad exams. The idiosyncratic scoring systems do make them seem impenetrable to outsiders, but fortunately, they are all graded on the bell curve, so I’ve come up with a handy table that makes them easy to understand.

I’ve accumulated recent data on the average scores by race for five exams: the GRE for grad school, the LSAT for law school, the MCAT for medical school, the GMAT for business school, and the DAT for dental school.

To make all the numbers comprehensible, I’ve converted them to show where the mean for each race would fall in percentile terms relative to the distribution of scores among non-Hispanic white Americans. Most of us have some sense of what the distribution of talent is among whites—political correctness doesn’t demand we avert our eyes when it comes to whites—so I’ll use whites as benchmarks:

Mean Score as Percentile of White Distribution

Test

Degree

White

Black

Asian

Tot Hisp

Mex-Am

GMAT

M.B.A.

50%

13%

55%

27%

24%

GRE-Verbal

Ph.D./M.A.

50%

18%

47%

29%

28%

GRE-Quant

50%

14%

66%

29%

28%

LSAT

J.D.

50%

12%

47%

19%

29%

MCAT-Verbal

M.D.

50%

10%

36%

19%

21%

MCAT-Phys Sci

50%

14%

61%

24%

25%

MCAT-Biol Sci

50%

10%

54%

24%

25%

DAT

D.D.S.

50%

16%

60%

27%

NA

Thus, for example, on the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), the gatekeeper for the M.B.A. degree, the mean score for whites falls, by definition, at the 50th percentile of the white distribution of scores. The mean score for black test-takers would rank at the 13th percentile among whites. Asians average a little better than the typical white, scoring at the 55th percentile.

Most of these tests break out separate nationalities among Hispanics. Thus, my table has columns both for “Total Hispanics” (27th percentile on the GMAT) and “Mexican-Americans” (24th percentile). In the 2000 Census, Mexicans made up 58 percent of the Total Hispanic population.

As you know, I like social statistics the way Bill James likes baseball statistics.

I noticed that the New York Times ran another long, intelligent article about baseball statistics today. How much brainpower does America devote to solid thinking about baseball statistics compared to social statistics?

For example, here's a featured article in the Washington Post today that would been ripped to shreds for obvious methodological flaws before ever being published in a baseball statistics journal:

Now, research is providing what could be crucial clues to explain how childhood poverty translates into dimmer chances of success: Chronic stress from growing up poor appears to have a direct impact on the brain, leaving children with impairment in at least one key area -- working memory.

"There's been lots of evidence that low-income families are under tremendous amounts of stress, and we know that stress has many implications," said Gary W. Evans, a professor of human ecology at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., who led the research. "What this data raises is the possibility that it's also related to cognitive development."

With the economic crisis threatening to plunge more children into poverty, other researchers said the work offers insight into how poverty affects long-term achievement and underscores the potential ramifications of chronic stress early in life.

"This is a significant advance," said Bruce S. McEwen, who heads the laboratory of neuroendocrinology at Rockefeller University in New York. "It's part of a growing pattern of understanding how early life experiences can have an influence on the brain and the body."

Previous research into the possible causes of the achievement gap between poor and well-off children has focused on genetic factors that influence intelligence, on environmental exposure to toxins such as lead, and on the idea that disadvantaged children tend to grow up with less intellectual stimulation.

"People have hypothesized both genetic and environmental factors play a role in why poor children don't do as well in school," said Martha Farah, director of the center for cognitive neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. "Experiential factors can include things like having fewer trips to museums, having fewer toys, having parents who don't have as much time or energy to engage with them intellectually -- to read to them or talk to them."

But Evans, who has been gathering detailed data about 195 children from households above and below the poverty line for 14 years, decided to examine whether chronic stress might also be playing a role.

"We know low-socioeconomic-status families are under a lot of stress -- all kinds of stress. When you are poor, when it rains it pours. You may have housing problems. You may have more conflict in the family. There's a lot more pressure in paying the bills. You'll probably end up moving more often. There's a lot more demands on low-income families. We know that produces stress in families, including on the children," Evans said.

For the new study, Evans and a colleague rated the level of stress each child experienced using a scale known as "allostatic load." The score was based on the results of tests the children were given when they were ages 9 and 13 to measure their levels of the stress hormones cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine, as well as their blood pressure and body mass index.

"These are all physiological indicators of stress," said Evans, whose findings were published online last week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "The basic idea is this allows you to look at dysregulation resulting from stress across multiple physiological systems."

The subjects also underwent tests at age 17 to measure their working memory, which is the ability to remember information in the short term. Working memory is crucial for everyday activities as well as for forming long-term memories.

"It's critical for learning," Evans said. "If you don't have good working memory, you can't do things like hold a phone number in your head or develop a vocabulary."

When the researchers analyzed the relationships among how long the children lived in poverty, their allostatic load and their later working memory, they found a clear relationship: The longer they lived in poverty, the higher their allostatic load and the lower they tended to score on working-memory tests. Those who spent their entire childhood in poverty scored about 20 percent lower on working memory than those who were never poor, Evans said.

"The greater proportion of your childhood that your family spent in poverty, the poorer your working memory, and that link is largely explained by this chronic physiologic stress," Evans said. "We put these things together and can say the reason we get this link between poverty and deficits in working memory is this chronic elevated stress."

If they had given the working memory IQ subtest first at age 9 and then again at age 17 and shown that those under more stress had seen bigger IQ declines, then it would be suggestive that stress might lower IQ. But by waiting until age 17 to give the IQ subtest for the first time, the study is of almost no use. How do we know that individuals who are exposed to a lot of stress because they and/or their families made a lot of stupid decisions are stupid because of the stress or were they exposed to a lot of stress because they were always stupid?

And, are we so sure that upper middle class Korean families are all that stress free when the scion brings home a 700 instead of an 800 on his SAT? Judging from Portnoy's Complaint, I would say that Philip Roth did not grow up in a low stress environment, but he seems pretty smart. I volunteer to lead an expedition to a low stress culture, such as Maui, and tabulate all the brilliant intellectual achievements the local kids have come up with.

By the way, why did they just use one IQ subtest, on working memory, instead of an entire IQ test? First, it's probably quicker and easier, especially for giving it to kids who speak exotic languages. Second, by just giving one IQ subtest, you don't have to mention the dread letters IQ. Third, blacks do relatively better on average on working memory than most other subtests -- Jensen says the white-black gap is only half a standard deviation on working memory.

Also, blood tests of hormones tied to emotions can give very different responses depending upon the current emotional state of the patient. For example, a medical clinic with people in lab coats walking around holding clipboards and discussing things in muted tones would be a fairly nonstressful environment for me (assuming I'm just being asked to give a sample for a scientific study, not for a personal diagnosis). But for some homeboy, well, it seems like a long way from home.

47 comments:

Anonymous
said...

You say:

"(If you are wondering why America’s white elites aren’t more worried about their kids facing competition from the huge number of Mexican immigrants they’ve let in, this educational indolence is one answer—at the highest levels of American society, Mexican-Americans just aren’t much competition.)"

Okay, but why is the SWPL crowd so complacent about flood-level Asian immigration, bringing actual competition? Even in California where Asians clog the UC system I've never heard organized upper middle class whites admit that maybe 1967 was a bad year.

Sailer, your obsession with test scores is annoying. How many years of test score "meritocracy" national decline does it take to get you to realize that the tests don't measure actual intelligence? Or do you even care? Do you even give a damn?

The so-called "American Meritocracy" is going directly into the crapper. Whodathunkit. What a surprise. Gee, what could the reason be? Perhaps because the "meritocracy" is intellectually bankrupt? But how can that be? When the country is lead by high test scoring geniuses!? All the right people have been promoted!

What we have now in the USA is the opposite of intelligent society. The test score driven "meritocracy" has produced a braindead, groupthink nation that is sinking to a Soviet level of intellectual inquiry. But, rest assured, our elites all have the very highest test scores!

Sailer, you were always behind the curve on the New World Order (because of your own personal status competition issues) and the test score driven "meritocratic" assault on classical America is just another facet of the Culture War that went completely over your head.

And as the years go by, I realize that you, Steve, are the New American Dinosaur: The white guy baby boomer from Southern California. It's you who represents EPIC FAIL when it comes to social reality, as opposed to social theory. Most of your social commentary is just a bunch of windy gruel. The truth is that you and your crowd do not know a damn thing about sustaining a civilization. That is why the world that you inherited is being swept away in record time.

Whatever, dude. Keep telling yourself that guys like you and, uh, Derbyshire, have got it all figured out: IQ tests, academic test scores, and Citizenism... those are the key building blocks of civilization.

Let's not forget Nobel Laureate Peter Grunberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Grünberg). Sure he's a Nobel Laureate, but for the stress of WWII he could have discovered something to make himself a household name like Einstein. Or Gauss.

One way to conceptualize this is to recognize that Dentists are all surgeons - and surgeons are a distinctive sub-set within medicine.

Dentistry is a separate surgical profession mainly because it is the most technically difficult type of surgery due to: 1. working in a confined and hard-to-access part of the body, 2. with hard tissue (the hardest tissue, indeed), and 3. the patient is conscious during the operation.

"social superiority over other whites by demonstrating their exquisite racial sensitivity and their aristocratic insouciance about any competitive threats"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY&feature=related

"Comedy." Pay attention after 1:30 when he muses on a Zimbabwe-esque future for the white race. Jokes about blacks raping whites. Everyone claps. Then I look on his wikipedia page and find that, despite his features, his father is a half-Jewish Mexican. Steve, this guy's identity is highly amorphous! He is white of convenience. He doesn't need to worry about the future consequences. If it's convenient, he's white; If not, not. Non-whites, both political and genetic non-whites, may love this country and western civilization etc., but if the shit were to hit the fan how many would not do what is simply human nature to do? Not because they are evil, because they are human! No citizenism! A nation of blood first!

Let's see how many posts it takes until someone goes off the wall on how "Asians aren't really smarter than Whites", even though Asians are only tangentially related to the point of the article. To the first poster, close but no cigar.

Dentistry is hardly the most challenging or difficult type of surgery: it's more trade-like than medicine because the skills are akin to jewelry or woodcarving or scrimshaw. I would say a good proportion of dentists are people who chose dental school as a second choice to medical school and before veterinary school.

I was a dental technician for several years and dealt with dentists on a daily basis. My family has a business where they deal with doctors, dentists, lawyers, CPAs and other upscale people and I can report that as a group dentists are behind doctors, as a group, in overall brightness.

One example of specialization in the medical field most people don't know about is the pathology diener. Dieners are the guys that do all the heavy lifting and a good deal of the actual work-particularly, "running the gut"-in autopsies. Almost all dieners are black, and most are very dark skinned blacks. Many are of marginal literacy, and most have had fathers, uncles and grandfathers who were dieners. There is almost an informal but very palpable "union" or "guild" they have. Outsiders just aren't hired or are run off quickly.

How long did it take to type all that and still not construct an actual syllogism?

Anonymous re: SWPLs and Asians

I think Asians are still out of the mix for SWPLs. They're quant/techies who go into medicine or corporate staff roles. Law and corporate line management require generalized skill sets and social savvy, so whites excel at them. Also, for all the talk about Asian female out-marriage I really just don't see it here on the Eastern seaboard. Asians remain an insular and therefore non-threatening group, like Hindus.

These posts always raise a question in my mind: does anyone know how to translate my LSAT score in 1973 of 656 (on the 800 scale of course) to an approximate equivalent today? I recall that my score was pretty good, and went to a top tier school, but don't know how it compares to the newer LSAT. Not that it matters to anyone, or measures anything, anything at all, other than perhaps white privilege.....

"How many years of test score "meritocracy" national decline does it take to get you to realize that the tests don't measure actual intelligence?

Truex, standardized tests do measure intelligence. However, they do not measure wisdom or character.

"The truth is that you and your crowd do not know a damn thing about sustaining a civilization. That is why the world that you inherited is being swept away in record time."

You've been reading Lawrence Auster, haven't you? He has been criticizing Sailer in a very similar manner. Personally, I see Auster's more philosophical and moralistic approach and Steve's data-driven approach as complementary ways of defending the Western civilization.

Truex, can you tell us more why don't believe the tests measure actual intelligence? Is it just because you think the people leading the country had high scores on the tests? I mean, do you think nerds have a huge amount of success running for public office?

So many of the kids of the SWPL's major in areas not inhabited by Asians. Trendy green fields or socially aware things like environmental science, law, anthropology, sociology, etc. Look at the rate of GRE taking. It's 97% rate of whites. And I bet that most of those Asians take the GRE's with the intention of going on into the sciences, not psychology like a good SWPL.

"Okay, but why is the SWPL crowd so complacent about flood-level Asian immigration, bringing actual competition?"

Easy answer, Asian women. Their hypergamous and assimilationist tendencies means that they are much easier to score than comparable SWPL females for SWPL males. Asian men on the other hand face an uphill battle in propagating their genetic legacies. Thus their lack of offspring means less competition for the future progeny of the SWPL male.

I suspect more Asians, as a proportion of eligible pool, take these exams--perhaps due to parental pressure. This would, everything else being equal, drag down the Asian score.

I am an Indian American parent, and know of many Indian kids who took the MCA/DAT and did not do well enough to get into US medical/dental schools. Many chose to go abroad to pursue medicine/dentistry, and some chose to pursue a degree in pharmacy.

Steve, to the extent that data is available on different Hispanic groups, where do Cubans stand relative to the non-Hispanic white distribution on these grad school tests? They seem to be overwhelmingly white and derived from Cuba's middle and upper classes. Do they perform as well as their fellow whites who are not Hispanic?

Also, how do Puerto Ricans score? They appear to be phenotypically to have much more African ancestry than other Hispanic groups.

Easy answer, Asian women. Their hypergamous and assimilationist tendencies means that they are much easier to score than comparable SWPL females for SWPL males. Asian men on the other hand face an uphill battle in propagating their genetic legacies. Thus their lack of offspring means less competition for the future progeny of the SWPL male.

If true, that might explain why male Swipples like East Asian immigration. But it doesn't explain why female Swipples don't object to it. Wouldn't they resent the increased competition for available male Swipples? Not that I buy your T99-esque explanation, but I'd be curious to hear your response.

One a tangent of this, NPR was reporting that there are not enough large animal vets in the U.S. Most vet school students (who are overwhelmingly white and female) want to be small animal vets so that they can live in cities and work with dogs and cats.

What was humorous in the NPR report was that it never mention the demographics of vet school students and never mentioned the culture of the students versus the culture of the industry where vets are needed.

On the subject of whether Steve Sailer cares about or knows anything about sustaining Western civilization:

I used to think that Mr. Sailer and Mr. Derbyshire were pretty much equivalent in being heartless, men without thumos, who were simply smart enough to realize what the future is likely to hold and how nasty it is going to be, but had no love for what is being lost.

But I have reconsidered in Mr. Sailer's case.

I think you people who aren't from California don't grasp the constant dull pain, like a toothache of the heart, that we Californians have. You know you're losing the country you love but we already lost ours.

I think Mr. Sailer's flippancy and love affair with chartsngraphs is just how he copes.

In the UK most doctors work wholly or partly in the NHS - ie state medicine. There are a large number of non-white docs. Ive heard this put down to the distortions of the market due to socialised medicine.

Dentists in the UK are more detached from the NHS system, they are much more akin to a private medical system. While many are non-British, non-white it seems to me that there are fewer non-whites compared to docs (often jewish though).

Vets however are pretty much working entirely in the free market. Some are non-British but Ive never seen or even heard of a non-white vet.

Asian immigration has not reached critical mass yet to the extent of Mexican immigration, in addition to it's geographic dispersion outside of California/Hawaii that it fails to registers on the (dull) sensors of SWPL females aside from the latest trendy non-mainstream dining experience. In addition, while the Asian Female/White Male coupling is the most common interracial relationship in the U.S., the disparate respective total population sizes means that less than 1% of total White males are married to Asian females. In contrast, over 20% of total Asian females are married to White males, which is why Asian males are so resentful.

Furthermore SWPL females do express their opposition to Asian immigration but in more subtle ways, as opposed to the direct prole opposition to Mexican immigration. For the SWPL female, it is not enough to simply oppose immigration, it must be done in an acceptable manner, namely as protecting of womyn's rights. This manifests in the form of demanding more legislation to oppose human trafficking or some such. Also it must be noted that SWPL females, in the name of nebulous liberal arts college sisterhood, are less inclined to critique the Asian female part of the equation whom they see as victims but more likely the White males. This means opposition to Asian female immigration will manifests more in the usual ornery manner of emasculating White males and calling him all sorts of names.

Steve - your sense that this study is junky is correct, but you missed some details in your critique. First of all, all of the kids involved were white; there is no racial confounding, despite what you imply. Second, they did some peculiar things when they constructed their 'allostatic load index' i.e. measure of stress. The biggest individual contributor to the differences in the stress index (between poor and not poor) appears to be BMI, not the stress hormones they measured. This isn't a good sign; stress *can* make you fatter, but there are so many other things that could increase BMI (poor diet, earlier maturity) that it would make more sense to just stick to the hormones. Only then their numbers don't come out as nice. Also, they did something funny when they constructed the index: they simply scored a one or zero for each metric, depending on whether the kid was in the top or bottom half. Why not use the raw numbers, weighted to provide equivalence (for example, score by deviation from the mean)? You'd keep more information that way. Dunno, but smells like data massage. Finally, if you look at the fine print in their conclusions, they don't actually eliminate the link between poverty and poor working memory (independent of stress); rather, they push the best estimate of the association in their smallish (195 kids) sample from significance into non-significance (slope of best fit line, b=-1.01 versus b=-0.77). But the best estimate of the relationship would still impute most of the difference to factors other than stress.

I think you people who aren't from California don't grasp the constant dull pain, like a toothache of the heart, that we Californians have. You know you're losing the country you love but we already lost ours."

Quite true. It's my home state, and I am unable to go back. It's the best place on earth, and it's as good as gone.

About the GMAT scores--when you compare them between ethnic groups, you are assuming that the portion of students writing the GMAT within each ethnic group is the same, and represent the brightest students in that group. For example, the top 15% of all black students, the top 15% of all Asian students, and so forth, are the ones writing the GMAT. This assumption may well be justified. But it is possible that it is not. It may be that some of the students are recent immigrants. Likely recent immigrants from China or India might not be a representative sample of the populations in those countries--they might be brighter than average, which gave them the wherewithal to come to America.

Possibly a greater proportion of black student write the GMAT than of students from other races. I have no idea if this is true. I'm just saying that if it were true, it is as a possible explanation for the lower scores.

Another comment: why isn't there a category to represent people from south Asia or the Middle East?

And even if it is true that people from the sub-Saharan Africa have lower IQ's--is it really useful to keep going on about it? How is this going to be beneficial? It seems to me that this information could be used in a lot of bad ways. Perhaps it is best to turn a blind eye to it.

After all, if it is true, its not as if anything can be done to change it. Being stupid isn't a disease that has the potential to be cured, such as, say, alcoholism.

It is pretty clear that some populations, particularly AmerIndians ands people from Sub-Saharan Africa, are more vulnerable to alcohol addiction than Eurasians, and may also be more vulnerable to fetal alcohol syndrome. It IS useful to talk about this, even though it is not politically correct, because studying this might lead to a way to control or cure alcoholism.

By the way, when you are comparing IQ between races, have you considered the fact that fetal alcohol syndrome (which suppresses IQ) is MUCH more common is some races than in others?

this study is junky [...] First of all, all of the kids involved were white; there is no racial confounding

Exactly. Yet they will probably apply the results to ALL populations. Note this line in the story: "Experiential factors can include things like having fewer trips to museums, having fewer toys, having parents who don't have as much time or energy to engage with them intellectually -- to read to them or talk to them." Hm, these markers sound familiar. Guess the study proves those people are mentally challenged because of their poverty, which is brought on by stress caused by poverty (circle).

smells like dara massage [...] the best estimate of the relationship would still impute most of the difference to factors other than stress

It has to be stress. What is more stressful than poverty...injustice...racism? Seriously, what is more stressful than racism, huh, huh?

The study looks like concocted proof that "low-income" status is environmental. The "achievement gap" is caused by poverty blah blah blah. Same old, same old.

Didn't all human populations used to be poor? How did anyone get rich?

Anonymous said...said: "It seems to me that this information could be used in a lot of bad ways. Perhaps it is best to turn a blind eye to it.

After all, if it is true, its not as if anything can be done to change it."

Oh, you must be new here, Anonymous said. Steve long ago demolished your argument that we ought not talk about low Sub-Saharan IQ since nothing can be done about it.

In fact, something CAN be done, and Steve long ago pointed out what: Improve the nutrition of SubSaharan black pregnant women and infants. Breastfeeding, along with iron and iodine supplements in toddlerhood, do in fact appear to increase IQ a few points among severely malnourished populations.

This improved nutrition is theorized to be part of the reason for the average IQ of 85 among American blacks (along with some white gene admixtures) as compared to average 70 IQ among full-blooded African blacks.

But the common liberal argument that we should turn a blind eye to low IQ, as "this information could be used in a lot of bad ways"means we cannot discuss doing those eminently doable things that CAN modestly improve IQ. So the low IQ just stays as low as it currently is. THAT seems to me a bad thing.

And even if it is true that people from the sub-Saharan Africa have lower IQ's--is it really useful to keep going on about it? How is this going to be beneficial? It seems to me that this information could be used in a lot of bad ways. Perhaps it is best to turn a blind eye to it."

Yes, it is useful to mention it. Why? Because by not facing up to it, they sieze on another possible explanation for thier benighted state - The Man be keepin' 'em down. This might explain why so many black people hate white people, and why they are inclined to act on that hatred. Also, it induces them to opt for fantastical (even quasi-magical) solutions. Such as over building university capacity (because nations must have universities, and by building universities, you cause intelligent people to spring into existence) which will be wasted, rather than trade schools, which might prove of greater value.

Anonymous said:"Possibly a greater proportion of black student write the GMAT than of students from other races. I have no idea if this is true. I'm just saying that if it were true, it is as a possible explanation for the lower scores."

Did you actually read the article? Steve gave the per capita share of test takers among each population relative to its number of young people in the US. Per capita, blacks take the GMAT at 49% the white rate, which implies that the group of black test takes is a more elite sample relative to blacks in general than the white sample is to whites in general.

Please take the time to read the articles in the future before opining. It will make you appear less silly and save you embarrassment.

Truex, can you tell us more why don't believe the tests measure actual intelligence?"

People who follow Steve's blog and others with similar views, are well versed as to what IQ test reveal and predict. They are well aware that not all high IQ people are competent in all things and that personality and environment play a part in life outcome. However, if you are knowledgable about the subject and not biased by sound-bite pc judgments about it, you learn that IQ is the strongest SINGLE PREDICTOR of life outcome. No other SINGLE indicator, such as gender, income, enviornment, class, religion, nationality, predicts as surely as IQ the life outcomes of the mass of inviduals. Statistically, IQ matters in a way so major that only insane pc concerns--mainly about the black/white issues--have kept it from being more utilized. The military uses it because they can't fart around. They have to have people with a certain level of intelligence for certain jobs and have found by raw experience that lower IQ people, however determined, cannot do certain jobs. Read how they tried to integrate blacks into high rise construction jobs. Couldn't do it, though they tried desperately. The blacks could not learn to read blueprints or grasp a lot of the requirements. Whites and Indians could be trained, blacks could not. Yet the white-collar powers that be insisted that blacks be integrated. So what happened? They had to put older white and indian workers back on the high rise and give the easier, on the ground jobs, to the blacks. This is just one example of how IQ works. Believe it or not, most of the time, how people do on a test really does predict their grasp of the subject matter on the job.

Anon wrote--Another comment: why isn't there a category to represent people from south Asia or the Middle East?---

In a Canada study of school children( with regression to the mean)Middle east children performed at black levels( due to the brain numbing aspects of islam and inbreeding, muslims mostly marry their cousins )

In a 1988 study by Sue and Abe,There was a study of Indian and Pakistani children combinedin California

IMHO, the inclusion of the Pakistanis dragged down the Indian score

On the SAT math,The Indian/Pakistani childrenscored 5 points less than the top scoring chinese

Indian stand alone were likely matching the chinese

On the SAT verbalThe Indian/Pakistani children were the top scorers, scoring 8 points more than whites and 47 points more than chineseAgain Indian stand alone were probably 5 points more--

So I expect Indians to do well in LSAT and GMAT outscoring whites in verbal

Already Indians are showing up in managerial positionsIndian CEOs already run nearly a dozen of the fortune 500 companiesWhites have nowhere to hide

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard a poor black child interviewed on TV say “I want to be a doctor or a lawyer when I grow up” while the television personality nods encouragingly. But it’s many more times than I’ve heard a poor black child say, “I want to own my own carpet-cleaning business when I grow up”.

This is probably correct . . . but not as correct as their low percentile scores might suggest. As I calculate in a couple of posts of my own, given the distributions of ability, the percent of blacks scoring at or above the white median, even without any bias toward post-graduate education, would only be around 35%, and perhaps even lower when affirmative action in college admissions is taken into account.

I think that this is a simple but important insight. Your math is over my head, but your conclusion is not:

"The populations taking these tests are all candidates who were accepted into college and then graduated from college. Therefore any racial differences in IQ should have been eliminated along the way, and we should witness only small artifacts -- such as we see between whites and Asians -- no matter what the distribution of the original pre-college populations. Since that is not the case, then what does that tell us about the college admission process -- and even worse -- the college graduation process. Especially when the gap is so enormous that it indicates there was absolutely no selection process whatsoever for college admission or college graduation."

Perhaps your data might also offer an insight into what Truex pointed out -- that our "meritocracy" has quickly driven us to the brink of extinction.

Perhaps your data might also offer an insight into what Truex pointed out -- that our "meritocracy" has quickly driven us to the brink of extinction.

The situation isn't remotely as bad as this suggests. But to understand why the meritocracy isn't all that great at a lot of its decisions, I'd suggest starting with the discussion of the rise of the cognitive elite in _The Bell Curve_, and maybe following that with Sowell's _Knowledge and Decisions_.

"Yes, it is useful to mention it. Why? Because by not facing up to it, they sieze on another possible explanation for thier benighted state - The Man be keepin' 'em down. This might explain why so many black people hate white people, and why they are inclined to act on that hatred. Also, it induces them to opt for fantastical (even quasi-magical) solutions. Such as over building university capacity (because nations must have universities, and by building universities, you cause intelligent people to spring into existence) which will be wasted, rather than trade schools, which might prove of greater value."

So you think that if you tell black people that it is a scientific fact that they are, on average, stupider than whites and Orientals, then the black people are going to meekly accept this?

I think this would make black people hate white people even more, and make them even more inclined to act on their hatred. There is just no nice way of talking about this that won't cause great offense and outrage. If you are white and non-Jewish, imagine how you would feel if teachers/governments/authorities/scientists came out and announced that Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people are genetically smarter than whites so more whites should be encouraged to go into trades to leave room in the universities for the Jews and Chinese. How would this make you feel if you are a white person who is hoping that your offspring will go to university?

It just isn't possible to go around talking about this sort of thing and still have a civil society. Whatever bad things might happen as a result of ignoring genetic IQ differences between races, surely they would pale in comparison to the evil that would arise from NOT ignoring these differences.

Mind you, I'm speaking of direct genetic difference only. If there are differences caused by nutrition, poisons, alcoholism, etc. then of course those should be addressed even if it is not politically correct. For example I read in the book "The 10,000 Explosion" that African Americans suffer from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome at a rate 30 times higher than white Americans. This is the sort of thing that is useful to talk about, even if it does make people angry, because it is the sort of thing that we have the potential to fix. The authors of "The 10,000 Explosion" theorize that all populations who are descended from people who didn't have agriculture (or only had it very recently) are much more prone to alcoholism and also to Fetal Alcohol syndrome, than, say, Eurasians, whose ancestors had been farming (and thus producing alcohol) for 6000 years.

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